Sunday, May 4, 2014

Alan Shepard Walked On the Moon But He Wasn't In Soylent Green

Every year the neighborhood I live in has a community garage sale. A community garage sale in the sense that most of the houses in the community have a garage sale on the same day. People come from miles around. Thousands of people. They start getting here around 7 a.m. Poking around for bargains and to get the best stuff. I also wanted to get out there early so I wouldn't miss out on the best junk. It's a rather affluent neighborhood, so I always make the mistake of going down to the wealthiest street first. And there's never anything there. These people didn't get rich by selling their good stuff to me for a fraction of what's it worth. They got rich the old fashioned way: they inherited it, then rigged the system so it was virtually impossible to lose after that. My first stop was a gold mine, and I know you want to hear about it. VHS tapes. Sure, every garage sale had a copy of Independence Day and a few Disney movies, but this one had these...

Soylent Green, Nightbreed, The Incubus, The Graveyard, The Manitou, Shadowzone, The Entity, Night of the Comet, Dead Alive, The Devils, The Alchemist, Highway To hell, Beyond the Door 1 and 2, Mark of the Beast, and of course, All That Jazz (not pictured). For most reasonable people that would have been a complete day, but it was only 9:30 so I went out again. This time I found this...

That is a photograph of astronaut Alan Shepard, one of only twelve humans to ever walk on the moon It is signed "To Lori." It appears to be a photograph of him being lifted into a helicopter after splashdown, but it's not clear if this is the moon mission or not. If anyone wants to provide more information this is for sale as I'm not really a collector of space or science paraphanalia. Yet I wasn't satisfied. I had seen one item earlier in the day I really wanted, but I had run out of cash. So I walked over to the Mobil, hit the ATM, and walked back to find that this was still available...

A Smith Corona Sterling typewriter. When I returned I saw this hipster kid was discussing how he repaired typewriters as a hobby. I was furious. Because I hate hipsters as much as you do. I wanted to go right over his shoulder with actual money, grab the typewriter, and leave, but I calmed down because I didn't peg him for actually having forty dollars in his pocket. So I waited while he blah blah blahd about some bullshit, then moved in closer to negotiate. Which wasn't too difficult because I only had forty dollars. Anyway, the Q and the E don't work, but nonetheless I wanted it. Next year maybe I get the Evel Knieval jumpsuit I've been wanting. Pin It